Page 39 2024 Spring Home and Garden LINCOLN DAILY NEWS April 2024 Growers are turning to seed packets and other flowering plants to provide the fresh cuts in the home. Some of these are flowers that can pull double duty. They add interest in the garden and love to be cut and brought into the house as well. Examples of flowers that are good for bouquets include sunflowers, dahlias, zinnias, cosmos, snapdragons, celosia, asters, carnation, gladiolus, and hydrangea, just to name a few. Outside and inside there is also going to be a trend to go dark. Niepagen said that flowering plants such as petunias and calla lilies are going black, and gardeners are loving them. The dark colors are excellent to mix with whites or pales to make both the light and dark stand out in the beds. A trend that Niepagen has some reservations about are what are called garden meadows. She said this is a “proceed with caution” trend and showed a slide of two very different styles of meadow garden. She emphasized that the photo on the left depicting what appears to be a wildly overgrown yard with clumps of plants growing increasingly taller and ticker is not as pretty a sight as the homeowner may think it is. The plus side to the left-hand photo was that this is a “set it and forget it” garden where that once planted, the grower has very little to do to maintain it. The biggest negative to this garden is that it may not be appreciated by the neighbors or city officials. On the right-hand side of the slide was another example of a meadow garden that Niepagen found less offensive. She said that the garden depicted is not a set it and forget. To maintain a meadow garden where plants are equal heights, well groomed, colorful, and with clean clear walkways takes planning before planting and a good deal of work to maintain it afterward. While meadow gardens are one way to do away with mowing, there are other trends that will do the same thing. Niepagen said that homeowners are looking to alternatives to grass in their lawns and finding value in trample-me plants. One such plant is flowering thyme which has a dense foliage and is flowering. It is good for small spaces or spaces where it is rocky or has poor soil. These plants grow and spread over time, they do not gain a great deal of height and remain green when the flowers have died out. Continued --
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